It’s the summer holidays, and I know teachers will be enjoying a well earned break from thoughts of planning lessons and marking homework. But here at Pi Towers, the Education Team are already busy thinking about the new academic year and the start of term. In particular, we are busy planning the next series of Picademies, and we want to make sure that your favourite teacher doesn’t miss out!

Dates for new academic year diaries are:

29th & 30th September 2014

27th & 28th October 2014

Note: We have changed the date for September’s Picademy from 1st & 2nd September to 29th & 30th, because many schools have Inset days at the start of the month.

So are you a teacher? Do you know a great teacher? Today is ‘Poke a teacher to apply for Picademy day’ (totally official). We need your help to track down wonderful educators to tell them about our free training course known as Picademy and ask them to apply to join the fast-growing ranks of Raspberry Pi Certified Educators (they get a badge and everything!)

Babbage with his Raspberry Pi Certified Educator Badge

Raspberry Pi Academies for Teachers (Picademies) take place in Cambridge, UK. We invite practising teachers with any subject specialism (we’ve had art, design tech, science and even history teachers attend), who teach any age group between 5 and 18 years old, to come to Pi Towers for two days of fantastic fun learning for free. There are no strings. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is an educational charity – offering free CPD to teachers is part of our charitable mission.

September’s Picademy will look favourably on applications from teachers in the South West of England, because I love clotted cream, but also because we’re very aware of regional accessibility to training and support, and so occasionally we will focus on specific regions. So if you are a teacher in the South West, we would love to have you here. This does not mean applications are open to teachers in the South West only! Please apply, teachers, wherever you are. And because we’ve had so many requests from teachers overseas, we are also now accepting applications from practising classroom teachers outside the UK too!

Applications for September Picademy will close on Friday 5th September. If you have been successful, we will let you know via the email address that you supplied in your application, no later than two weeks prior to the event. Applications for October will close on Friday 10th October.

OH I so want to go, but I know that I will not get time off for CPD at the end of September and I have already booked a holiday for half term week. If it was possible to run one of these at the weekend I would make a real effort to make sure I got there – and I live and teach in the South West, so it is not an easy journey at all. Blast!!!

I am also interested in an answer to Richard’s question. I’d also like to know if there are any such courses online for those in the US. It’s great that you are taking applications from those not in the UK. Do you have a list of locations and dates that you might be considering? I’d also be interested in helping if close to my area just outside of Chicago.

What if…?
I was applying to a Picademy. Swedish (live in a small swedish town, not really a town…), ICT-educator/advisor, sometimes doing projects (scratch, Lego Wedo and so on) in class. Would love to bring the Pi into our schools.

So… Is it possible? Swedish, not in class all the time, former teacher, love the Pi. And creative pedagogy.

I would love to become a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator but it will be impossible for me go to England for training. My school in the US has been in session for over a month. Is it possible for me to do this via the internet?

My students are Pi fans. We enjoyed having Ben Nuttall in our classes as a guest! Thank you for sharing him with us.

I’m afraid it’s not possible online: but we *are* looking at ways to hold Picademy in other countries. It’s not certain we’ll go via that route yet, but there is a lot of demand, and we’re trying to work out what the best way to try to satisfy it (while allowing our education team to do the other, equally important, parts of their jobs) might be.

Are there any plans for further training dates this year. We would like to send 2 staff for training but the October dates are half term and we already have other commitments. We would like to be in a position to develop a new unit to deliver to all year 9 after the Feb half term.

I am glad that you are looking for ways to hold Picademy in other countries. We held a Teacher Researcher Raspberry Pi Workshop for two days this summer – just enough to get teachers familiar with the Pi so they could use it in their classrooms. The researchers were new to the Pi also, but were excellent partners. We have a potential partner interested in helping us find grant funding for more workshops, but we would love to follow the Picademy model more closely. Would love to see how we might collaborate with you to get more Pi training for teachers in US if you have interest and can find time to communicate about possibilities. Thank you for the good work you are doing and for sharing so much online so that we can use it.

Posted by Carrie Anne PhilbinDirector of Education at the Raspberry Pi FoundationWears many hats